The invention relates in general to projectiles and in particular to non-lethal projectiles.
Non-lethal projectiles are valuable assets for law enforcement and military services. Typically used in crowd control, non-lethal projectiles may be deployed against unruly individuals to persuade them to desist with their activities and leave an area or to be temporarily disabled so that they can be taken into custody. The primary intent of these projectiles is to be non-lethal and not cause traumatic or long term injury yet still deliver sufficient blunt force to an individual to cause initial pain and discomfort.
Currently available non-lethal projectile designs, and their associated launching weapons, operate by limiting the projectile's kinetic energy that is delivered to a human target, below the level that would prove fatal or produce severe penetrating wounds. However, due to the wide range of non-lethal projectile designs currently available, no one particular value for the maximum kinetic energy is possible. The maximum non-lethal kinetic energy for a particular projectile design is dependent on several factors such as the projectile's velocity upon impact, its weight, and also the degree to which the projectile's material deforms upon impact to help distribute its energy and lessen the potential to penetrate the skin. These limitations therefore restrict the muzzle velocities that the non-lethal projectiles can be fired at which in turn limits their effective range. An example of a commercially available non-lethal projectile is a shot-filled bean bag fired from a 12-ga shotgun. The bean bag weighs 40 grams (1.4 oz.) and is fired at −90 m/sec (300 ft/sec). The effective operating range is 5 meters to 20 meters to deliver less than 165 Joules of kinetic energy.
Commonly used non-lethal projectiles include rubber projectiles in the shape of bullets, or round balls, as well as shot-filled bean bags. These relatively soft or conforming materials usually means that the projectile's shape will not have sufficient aerodynamic qualities to travel long distances, without a large loss in velocity, and still have adequate accuracy. Accordingly, these limitations restrict their effective range from about 5 meters to 20 meters with accuracy of about 75 mm to 100 mm. Additionally, because of the limits on muzzle velocity most cartridges that fire non-lethal projectiles have reduced propelling charges. As a result, these cartridges are not sufficiently strong enough to cycle the launcher's bolt semi-automatically and therefore must be fired one at a time manually.
Other known non-lethal projectiles provide time delayed deployment of non-lethal components from a carrier to increase the effective distance of the munition. However, these projectiles are limited to chemical dispersants and may prove dangerous at close ranges as there is no mitigation of the carrier's velocity after deployment.
A need exists for an improved non-lethal projectile which is effective at both long and short ranges.